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Websleuths News

On the latest edition of Websleuths Radio we tackle the Rebecca Zahau murder case and the big mistake made in the autopsy report of the Las Vegas shooter.
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Sharp was arrested under the Knapp alias in January for car theft. He told police the little girl with him — who called him "daddy" —was his daughter. The little girl was put in a children's home. She.said she was Karen Knapp. When Sharp was arrested again for child molesting, Karen was made a ward of the court, put up for adoption and placed in a foster home.

I will try and find it, but I believe the molestation charge was an outstanding warrant from prior to the kidnapping of Karen Huber.

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(from various CA papers of the time) Sharp, identifying himself as Cecil Russell, was arrested on or around Jan 4th on an auto theft warrant by San Diego PD. It was at this time he was found to have Karen. She was then placed into foster care.
Sharp and two other men, Kenneth Wagand and Allen Damrill, were questioned by a detective from the city of Gardena (where the car had been stolen). The other two men were released, but Sharp was held on a warrant from Los Angeles for suspicion of child molestation. He was convicted and sentenced to 90 days in the county jail.

The owners of the vehicle, a Mr and Mrs Perkins (it is mentioned they moved from Gardena to an address on Havenhurst Ave in Van Nuys) contacted the detective who had handled the auto theft and told him the car had "all kinds of childrens clothing" and toys and dolls (also the Polaroids) which did not belong to them.

It is not stated that the items were collected by LE, though they may have been used as evidence in the abduction/auto theft trial. The raingear that Anna was wearing, if in the vehicle, may stand out in someones' mind.

The owners of the vehicle, a Mr and Mrs Perkins (it is mentioned they moved from Gardena to an address on Havenhurt Ave in Van Nuys) contacted the detective who had handled the auto theft and told him the car had "all kinds of childrens clothing" and toys and dolls (also the Polaroids) which did not belong to them.

It is not stated that the items were collected by LE, though they may have been used as evidence in the abduction/auto theft trial. The raingear that Anna was wearing, if in the vehicle, may stand out in someones' mind.

I don't believe Anna was wearing any raingear that day. If I remember reading what Annasmom said that Anna took off her coat when she came inside, and never put it back on when she went back outside. However, a handmade doll might stick out in someone's mind.

Anna's Doe Network entry states she was wearing "black oversized rubber boots". I also recall something else being mentioned, something brightly-colored which was not discovered in the creek (this being something else indicating she had not fallen into the stream).
Or maybe my rememberer is broken.

Anna's Doe Network entry states she was wearing "black oversized rubber boots". I also recall something else being mentioned, something brightly-colored which was not discovered in the creek (this being something else indicating she had not fallen into the stream).
Or maybe my rememberer is broken.

You're right! She was wearing boots. When I hear the word raingear, I only was thinking of raincoats and umbrellas.

The second southland child kidnap victim recovered in a week was re-united with her family Thursday as police in three cities tightened the skein of evidence that appears to tie jailed suspect Jack Clifton Sharp to both abductions.

Five year old Karen Joyce Huber of Echo Park, who was kidnapped last November while on her way to school in Los Angeles, was returned to her mother by San Diego police. Officers said the child had been living in a foster home under the name of Karen Knapp placed there by authorities who in January took custody of the child after the man posing as her father was arrested on a car theft warrant.

The man, now identified as Jack Clifton Sharp, is in Los Angeles County jail, held under a 50,000 dollar bond and charged with child stealing and related offenses in the June 17 abduction of 4 year old Michelle Lynn Booher of Long Beach. The Booher child was with Sharp, then known as William Knapp, when he was arrested June 21 in San Diego where he and the girl were discovered living in a hotel for indigents.

San Diego police who returned the Huber girl to her divorced mother Thursday theorized the child had been "brain-washed" to the point where she lost her identity and dociley accepted as her father the man who allegedly kidnapped her from her echo park neiborhood last November 13.

As police in San Diego, Gardenia, and Los Angeles were spurred by Sharp's arrest to revive the Huber case it became apparent that the kidnappings were nearly identical crimes.

In each case, investigators reported, Sharp allegedly stole a car from a bowling alley parking lot and abducted a blue-eyed blonde child who was molested but not harmed. Sharp allegedly took both children to San Diego and told people the girls were his daughters........

Another coincidence is that Sharp/Knapp targeted on girls from divorced parents. This way he could tell them that he was their father and something happened to their mother. Both Anna and Cynthia Sumpter lived with a divorced parent.

So what we have is a serial kidnapper of blonde girls about Anna's age who targeted the daughters of divorced parents and took them while either coming or going to school. This all matches or is close to what happened to Anna.

So far, the only potential links to the area are the coincidence of the last names of Sharp and the tipster, and that Sharp evidently lived in the East Bay several decades after Anna's abduction. We need to find a closer link if one exists.

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So far, the only potential links to the area are the coincidence of the last names of Sharp and the tipster, and that Sharp evidently lived in the East Bay several decades after Anna's abduction. We need to find a closer link if one exists.